


The Cold Grasp of Steel

by ericsonclan



Series: Spiderverse AU [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Spiders, Transformation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericsonclan/pseuds/ericsonclan
Summary: Clementine is kidnapped by Harbinger and forced to undergo a spiderlike transformation.
Series: Spiderverse AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1989784
Kudos: 4





	The Cold Grasp of Steel

**Author's Note:**

> (by Laura)

Clementine hurried down the sidewalk, her breath coming in short gasps as she jogged toward the nearest subway entrance. Her phone bounced slightly in her hand as she went, making it difficult to see the directions on it. It had been less than two weeks since Lee’s job had led to them moving to a different neighborhood and she was still getting her bearings. Checking the clock in the upper right-hand corner, Clem saw she had enough time to stop for a second and actually figure out what trains she’d need to take to get home.

Scrolling down, Clementine nodded to herself, making sure she’d committed the list to memory before resuming her jog. She wanted to make it back home before dinner so she’d have time to watch  _ Disco Broccoli  _ with A.J. like he’d begged for. Ever since that attack at the Thanksgiving parade a few months ago, Lee had been really strict about knowing where she was at all times. Clementine couldn’t blame him. She and A.J. had been in real danger that day. She didn’t want to give Lee more reason to worry.

Suddenly the ground seemed to give out from under her as Clementine’s legs buckled. Her head hit the pavement hard before she was suddenly pulled backwards, all this happening too quickly for Clementine to even muster a scream. Before she could get her bearings, something cold covered her mouth and a low, familiar voice whispered in her ear.

“At last, a worthy test subject. We’ll put that fighting spirit to use won’t we, Clementine?”

It was the voice of that terrorist who bombed the parade. What was she doing here now? How did she know Clementine’s name? Clementine bit down on the obstruction in front of her only to immediately realize that it must be Harbinger’s cyborg hand covered her mouth. She wriggled and kicked with all her might, but just as before she was helpless to break out of the woman’s grasp.

“No use resisting,” Harbinger stated simply, pulling Clementine further into the alleyway they stood in. “This should make you more obedient,” Clementine felt something sting her neck and then all was darkness.

She awoke to find herself in a cold, dark room, strapped to some sort of table. It felt as though no time at all had passed since Clementine had been knocked out, but that couldn’t be the case. Her heart was pounding frantically inside her as she struggled against her restraints. This was playing out like every crime episode on a serial killer ever did. She had to get out of here before-

“Up so soon? You are a tough one,” Harbinger’s voice echoed through the room before she emerged from the shadows, a menacing smile on her face.

“What do you want from me?” Clementine hissed, her jaw clenched.

“It’s simple really. I’m looking for a test subject for my new serum and ever since our scuffle a few months ago, you’ve been my prime candidate,”

“Why me?” Clementine asked, trying to buy herself time as her eyes scanned the room. There was nothing in here she could see besides the table she was on and a medical tray where a large syringe lay. That must be the serum this psycho mentioned.

Harbinger chuckled. “You fought back while all others ran. If you’re to be my soldier, I need to know you have the guts for the task,”

“I’ll never obey you,”

“You won’t have a choice. With one injection, you’ll be hooked,” Harbinger sauntered over to the tray, picking up the needle. “This serum is only the first dose. Once it enters your bloodstream, you’ll be completely dependent on further doses for your continued transformation. Or else you’ll die,”

“Transformation?” Clementine leaned her head forward, biting at the thick leather restraints. There was no way she was getting through these.

Harbinger hummed in approval. “Not fazed by the threat of death. Impressive. But when you’re lying on your bedroom floor feeling your organs rot within you, you’ll be begging for the next dose,” With that she strode forward with the syringe. Gripping Clementine’s throat and forcing her head down, she placed the needle at the crook of her neck right in front of her collarbone and began to inject the serum.

It burned. The needle was huge and felt like a knife stabbing deep within Clementine’s shoulder. And the substance itself … that was a pain Clementine had never experienced before. It felt like her body was being torn apart, every cell within her screaming in agony as the fluid coursed through her veins. Clementine was screaming too. She could feel how raw her throat was, sense her limbs pulling frantically against the restraints. But she couldn’t hear anything. All her ears picked up was the rush of blood pumping through them, her heart beating so fast and hard Clementine wondered if it could hold out. Would she die here and now? The pain overtook her and she slipped into unconsciousness once more before she knew that answer.

Clementine woke up with a start, looking around her wildly. She was on the subway. How the hell…? It was the right train, the one she needed to get home. Her phone and wallet were within her purse. Nothing was missing. Checking the time, Clementine saw that while she wouldn’t make it back in time for  _ Disco Broccoli _ , she wouldn’t be late for dinner either. How had she gotten here? Had Harbinger dragged her unconscious onto the train and no one had stopped her?

Or had it all been a dream? Clementine’s fingers traced the point where she remembered Harbinger had punctured her neck. There was nothing there. Not a bruise or a mark, not even an injection point. But it had been so real… and Clementine had  _ never  _ fallen asleep on the train before. Clementine looked around her warily, keeping her eyes and ears open for any danger. The whole ride home she was a raw bundle of nerves, but nothing jumped out at her. Nothing even seemed out of the ordinary. Exiting the train and leaving the station, Clementine truly wondered to herself if she had made the whole thing up. There seemed to be no other explanation.

\---

The next few days did little to ease Clementine’s suspicions. If anything, they only heightened them. Everything felt off. Noises like the coffee grinder or vacuum were louder than Clementine expected and she often found herself shying away from bright lights, preferring to sit in darkness whenever possible. Simple tasks like going to the store or completing her winter reading felt near impossible when all of her senses left her feeling like one giant raw nerve: exposed, fragile, liable to snap at the smallest things.

The evening of the third day brought the crux of the problem to full light. Clementine was walking through the living room with a cup of hot tea and a plate of cookies to give herself a snack break before attempting to finish her winter paper. Suddenly a motorcycle zoomed by on the street outside their apartment.

What normally would have been an annoying disturbance had a catastrophic effect upon Clementine’s instincts. Her hand instinctively swung out, smashing her mug to bits against the corner of the wall. The hot tea that scalded her skin sent her other arm jerking back, the cookies flying through the air and the plate falling toward the floor. Before Clementine could even think of what to do her hand shot back out, grasping the plate and catching each and every cookie before it hit the ground.

“Wow, Clem, that was awesome!” A.J. exclaimed, running over and snagging one of the cookies. “How did you do that?”

“Are you alright, sweetpea?” Lee asked, looking concerned as he stepped toward her.

“Y-yeah. Not sure what happened there. Guess I freaked out,” Clementine looked to her mug, shattered to smithereens on the floor.

“You go lie down and rest. I’ll get that cleaned up,”

“Thanks. I guess I will,” Clementine stepped away without another word. Locking the door behind her, she set the plate down on her desk shakily, bringing her hand up close to her face. She thought she’d felt something on there and she wasn’t wrong. A thin film of something white and sticky covered the surface of her hand. It was easily brushed away and rolled into a ball. Clementine squished it between her fingers. It reminded her of the glue sticks in school, how they could form miniature webs if you covered your fingers in glue and then pulled them apart. Webs. That had to be what this substance was. But that meant…

Clementine rushed over to her laptop. Throwing it open, she began to open multiple search tabs, looking for evidence that her fears may be true. Pictures of Wolf and Recluse covered her screen: action shots of them soaring between buildings, in the midst of fights with villains and Wolf posing for the occasional photo opp while Recluse looked away in disinterest. Other known spiderpeople popped up as well: Wanderer in Chicago, Funnel in Louisiana, a spider duo over in San Francisco. There were more than Clementine expected, but still only a handful. And it looked as though she had joined their ranks. The sticky white webs within all the photos matched the substance that had spurted from her hand.

_ So this is what Harbinger meant by a soldier, _ Clementine thought, a sick feeling of dread twisting her stomach.  _ She wants someone she can use to fight whatever delusional war she has planned: a spiderperson all her own.  _ It was all real after all. Picking up her phone, Clementine started a thorough search of its contents, looking for any sort of clue Harbinger might have left upon it. She’d said Clementine would need another dose of the serum or that she would die. Though Clementine was loath to give that threat credence, it must mean that her kidnapper had left some means of contact for Clementine to find, some way to communicate orders to her new lackey.  _ Like I’ll ever let myself become that.  _ Clementine’s eyes hardened. If Harbinger thought she would just roll over and take this, she had another thing coming.

It took several minutes of scrolling through her email, photos, texts and contacts, but finally Clementine found what she had been searching for: a contact she had never added to her phone. Where the name should be there was simply a series of numbers that were meaningless to Clementine. This must have been the bread crumb Harbinger had left: a means by which to declare surrender, to reach out in hopes of receiving the next dose of the serum. Clementine wouldn’t give her captor that satisfaction. She would find a way to beat this thing before it came to that.

The next several days were a flurry of frantic research. Clementine spent every spare moment she had looking into spiderpeople, discovering the details of each of their powers and the theories behind their origins. Most were vague at best. No one knew how spiderpeople were made, some theorizing that they were transformed by mutations caused by spider bites occurring randomly in nature while others believed the whole thing was a conspiracy and that the spiderpeople had been created by the government in secret underground labs. No spiderpeople had ever been particularly forthcoming about their origins, not in this generation or the former when the first spiderpeople started to appear about twenty years ago.

When Clementine wasn’t trying to find herself a cure, she was preparing for the next semester at a new school. With their move to a new neighborhood, it also meant a new public school. That meant new teachers, new supply lists, new assignments and new students. Clementine found herself pulled away from her research more often than not to go shopping for school supplies with A.J. or fill our school registration forms with Lee. Such mundane tasks felt like a waste of time when Clementine’s very life was falling apart just beneath the surface.

She was only sure of two things regarding her newfound powers: she was getting stronger and she was getting sicker. Every day more intricate and sturdy webs emerged from Clementine’s fingertips, sometimes of her own volition, more often than not on instinct. She worked hard to temper her reactions, controlling her web spurts and learning to zone out the many new distractions that had emerged thanks to her amplified senses. Her aim, agility and awareness were all improving with enough subtlety that mixed with Clementine’s foresight and good sense she was able to hide her arachnid progress from Lee and A.J.

However, each day had Clementine feeling shakier and more nauseated. She’d already thrown up a handful of times by the time day eight rolled around. On day nine a fainting spell in the kitchen had Lee worried and insistent upon calling a doctor. Clementine was barely able to talk him out of it. She didn’t want to risk turning into some sort of captive science experiment if blood tests revealed exactly what the serum had done to her. At Lee’s insistence she went on bed rest. A.J. delivered her water, Tylenol, chicken noodle soup and all manner of books with which to entire herself. Clementine was touched by the gesture but felt too sick to do much of anything as she lay in bed.

The next day found Clementine bedridden as well, too woozy to get out of bed except for the simplest tasks. Her head was pounding and she couldn’t hold anything down, even barfing up the water and pills she tried to take. Lee sat worriedly by her side, insisting that if this continued they would have to go to emergent care. Clementine tried to protest only to be overcome by another bout of nausea. She spent most of the day sleeping but didn’t get any better.

By the eleventh day, Clementine’s suppressed fears began to rise uncontrollably within her. Harbinger had said she would die without another dose of the serum. Had she been telling the truth? Did she have reason to lie? Clementine lay shivering uncontrollably beneath her covers, her eyes swollen and puffy, barely opening as she coughed harshly. She couldn’t let this continue. She wouldn’t do that to Lee or A.J.

Whatever Harbinger had planned for her, was it worth death to avoid it? She needed more time to find a way to resist and break free of her methods. That was what Clementine told herself, but a deeper part of her knew her true reasoning: she didn’t want to die. This was the sickest she had ever been. If she didn’t act soon, she might not even have the strength to reach out and receive the serum. She couldn’t risk waiting until it was too late. With shaking hands, Clementine pulled up the mysterious contact and sent a simple message.  _ Help. _

Within a half hour, a buzzing outside Clementine’s window drew her attention. Collapsing from her bed and crawling across the floor, she pulled herself up by the legs of her chair till she stood shakily on her feet. There was a drone at her window, a miniature version of the ones Harbinger had used during her attack at the parade. Mustering all her strength, Clementine opened her window a few inches. Zooming into the room, the drone deposited something upon her desk then flew out without further action.

Clementine’s eyes locked upon what had been left: a syringe. Inside was the same murky solution that had been forcibly injected into her before. The serum. Clementine didn’t hesitate. Grasping the syringe as firmly as she could, she placed the needle to the crook of her neck, preparing for the burn as she injected the drug.

But this time it didn’t come. There was pain at the point of injection, but no overwhelming agony as Clementine remembered from the first dose. After completely injecting the needle, Clementine collapsed to the floor, shaking with exhaustion and cold. She was too weak to return to her bed. Lee had run out with A.J. to pick up some last-minute materials from his teacher. There was no one here to help her and no reason to hide the syringe that still jutted prominently from her shoulder. Clementine lay sprawled upon the floor in a cold sweat, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.  _ Please work. Don’t let it be too late. _

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the serum took effect. The shaking subsided, Clementine’s breathing no longer halting and raspy but smooth and controlled. The dull, heavy throbbing of her head eased up, her thoughts clearing, and Clementine was no longer cold. Crawling across the floor, Clementine found the process much easier than it had been on her way to the window. Pulling herself up onto the bed, she checked the clock on her phone. It had been only 52 minutes since her text had been sent. That meant the drug had taken effect in under twenty minutes. In that span of time, she’d gone from feeling as though she was on the brink of death to showing the symptoms of a slight cold. How was that even possible?

The syringe was still embedded within Clementine’s neck. Pulling it out slowly with a pained hiss, Clementine examined the vessel. It was completely empty. In her desperation she had used every last drop of the serum. Perhaps there was still a residue on the inside of the canister… but how could she test it? Tucking the needle under some papers within her bedside drawer, Clementine collapsed back against her bed, her eyes searching the ceiling. She could think clearly again. The drive to fight this was back, but she knew in another two weeks’ time or less she’d be just as desperate for another dose of the serum. How long would she be dependent on this – for the rest of her life?  _ I’ll find a way to beat this. I’m not giving up.  _ Clementine’s determination was absolute.

But another truth emerged in her mind as well. This wasn’t going to be easy. It would take time and everything she had to figure out to break free. By then if it wasn’t already true, the changes in her body would likely be permanent. She was a spiderperson. Clementine looked at her hand, letting a thin string of spider silk softly flow out. She would need help figuring out how to control this. For that, she had to turn to the very people Harbinger wanted her to destroy. She needed to find Recluse and Wolf.


End file.
